Treating Depression: Psychopathology

• AO1 - cog behaviour therapy (CBT)


  - Most commonly used psychological treatment for depression

  - CBT begins by assessing patients problems and identify goals for therapy and put a plan to achieve them

  -One of tasks is to identify where there might be negative/irrational thoughts and finally put more effective behaviours into place

  -CBT involves working to change negative and irrational thoughts and finally put more effective behaviours into place

  - some CBT therapists use techniques from beck or ellis.
• AO1- becks cog therapy


  -idea behind cog therapy is to identify automatic thoughts about world, self and future

  -once these are identified then these thoughts must be challenges - this is the central component of the therapy

  -cog therapy aims to help patients test the reality of their negative beliefs

  - patients may be set work to record when they enjoyed and event or when people were nice to them so that in future sessions when if patients sat nobody is nice to them or there is no point in going to events, the therapist can produce this evidence and use it to prove the patients statements are incorrect
• AO1- ellis rational emotive behaviour therapy (REBT)


  - ellis extends the abc model to an ABCDE model- D stand for dispute and E for effect

  -central technique is to dispute irrational thoughts

  - rebt therapist would identify them as examples of utopianism and challenge this as an irrational belief- it would involve a vigorous argument

  - this is intended to change the irrational belief and break the link between negative life events and depression

  - the vigorous argument is the main concept of rebt
• AO1- behavioural activation


  - alongside the cog aspects of cbt, the therapist may also work to encourage a depressed patient to be more active and engage in enjoyable activities

  - this behavioural activation will provide more evidence for the irrational nature of beliefs
• AO3- strength of cbt


  - evidence of effectiveness

  -research compared with the effects of cbt with antidepressant drugs and a combination of the two in 327 depressed adolescents

  - after 36 weeks , 81% of antidepressants group and 86% of cbt and antidepressants group were significantly improved

  - means there is a good case for making cbt the first choice of treatment in public health care systems like the NHS
• AO3- limitation for cbt


  -suitability for diverse clients

  - in severe cases, depressed clients may be unable to motivate themselves to engage with the cognitive work cbt. they may not even be able to pay attention in a lesson

  - researches suggest any form of psychotherapy is not suitable for people with learning difficulties

  -means that cbt may only be appropriate for a specific range of clients
• AO3- counterpoint


  - now evidence to challenge this conventional wisdom

  - researchers concluded that cbt was as effective as other treatments for severe depression

  - studys concluded that cbt can be effective for people with learning difficulties/disabilities

  - this means that cbt have much wider application than was once thought.